July 2014

Sharknado

Syfy had their premiere of Sharknado 2 yesterday. Jennifer and I had never watched the first one, and we were not particularly planning to watch this one either until we learned about the Syfy Sync app and it's Hue Light integration.

So yesterday evening after dinner we installed the Syfy Sync app to an iPad and tried it out with the first Sharknado movie on Netflix.

The Hue light integration was very nice. Whenever the Sharks were about to strike, the room would go red, and when lighting struck on the tv, the room lights would flicker, that sortof thing. Quite cool actually. I pretty much want Hue light integration with every show now.

Anyway, Sharknado the first movie was quite cute, I thought it was as bad as it was supposed to be but was surprised that it was sincere and earnest for the most part.

Sharknado 2 on the other hand, while entertaining, was much more opportunistic and probably much too self-aware of itself.

There's a great bit in the opening where the main characters are on a plane and the plane is flown by the actor who played Ted Stryker from the 70s Airplane movies.

In a similiar vein, the Taxi driver on the show was Judd Hirsch from the TV show: Taxi.

While those two cameos were great, others were not so great. There were probably a half dozen segments of Al Roker and Matt Lauer, from the Today Show, that were just terrible. There were also several segments with Kelly Rippa, the Weather channel and some local NYC weather people that did nothing at all to move the plot along. There were also a lot of cameos by 50+ year old actors in general, which is kindof weird when you take into account that the show was ostensibly targeting the social media set.

While Sharknado 2 was a bit of a disappointment, I did enjoy Sharknado 1. The Hue light sync on both was great, and I look forward to them hopefully doing more Hue sync movies in the future.

Everything is Awesome!

Friday we watched the Lego Movie. It was a cute kids movie, basically the plot from the Matrix for the Elementary set.

Batman was in the movie more than I expected, but was entertaining.

There's great voice talent with Morgan Freeman and Liam Neeson.

You'll pretty much have the show's "Everything is Awesome" song stuck in your head for the rest of your life too.

Worth seeing on DVD.

Above sketch was done in Manga Studio on the 8" Dell Venue Pro. The downside to using Manga Studio on an 8" tablet is once you account for all the tool palettes you end up with a 4" or so square to draw in. Despite that, it's still entertaining enough to draw with on the couch, if not use for very serious work.

Arrow

It's Batman Day

It appears to be Batman's birthday (75th anniversary) today. In anycase there are a lot of Batman sketches in my Twitter today as social media in certain circles is making it an internet holiday of sorts.

Let's Go Surfing

While it may be harder to advertise to people in one giant ad, and while people may be able to find others online that share their niche interest. My guess is, the broadstrokes of most people's day to day are still more similar than not. Everyone is still looking at the sky, just instead of the moon, everyone is picking their own star as the focus of their attention.

The idea is to track eye movements and other mental and physical characteristics of the developers, in order to spot when their alertness levels drop or they are struggling with a task -- which is when errors are most likely to creep into their work.

Tap it

Picked up a Philips Hue Tap today. Really neat device for controlling your Hue light bulbs. It has 4 buttons -- the 3 obvious ones, and then the whole outer shell acts as a 4th. It has no battery. It is kinetically powered, meaning the button tap alone powers the wireless signal of the device.

While our phones have been working fine to control the lights. This is even a faster way, and brings back some of the "light switch" convenience you lose when you switch to Hue.

The most useful aspect, however, will be the next time we have guests stay the night, they will be able to turn on and off their lights alot easier. And it's also super easy now to turn all the lights on or all the lights off in one quick press.

Nova

Found and picked up a Nova action figure from the Guardians of the Galaxy wave at Meijer today. They finally have an endcap set-up for the movie. Also saw all the others figures in the set for the first time at retail too.

A big improvement over this more limited articulation Ultimate Spider-man wave Nova figure I picked up a year or two ago.

Above, Nova with the Injustice Video Game version of Green Lantern.

The Nova Corps, are essentially Marvel's analogues to the Green Lantern Corps.

Earth 2

I got The New 52/Earth 2 Flash and Green Lantern in the mail this weekend. I've only read the first 5 or so issues of this series so far. I've been meaning to catch up on it though.

As alternate Earth versions of the Classic Golden Age versions go, they are fine enough characters from what I've seen so far.

As action figures, it's a little mixed. DC Collectables have been making some really nice figures lately, unfortunately, these are exceptions.

As soon as I took the Lantern out of his box, his left leg spontaneously popped off. Plus the figure has an intense noxious vinyl smell that goes well beyond the normal-- "new figure smell". Beyond those quality issues, Green Lantern is a fine enough sculpt and representation of the character's costume.

The Flash has a tiny head. And while the helmet may be an accurate representation of the comic character, it looks even more ridiculous in 3D than it does in print. But at least his legs appear to be staying on.

Here is a shot of the Classic Golden Age Alan Scott Green Lantern and his New 52/Earth 2 update. I'm still a fan of the the original costume design myself. I know people have different opinions of the red shirt, but the cape is cool.

Here is a shot of the Classic Golden Age Jay Garrick Flash and his New 52/Earth 2 update. It's a more straightforward update than the GL one, but nothing really makes that helmet work.

Despite the griping, I'm glad that DCC made the figures. I'm always up for adding New GLs and Flashs to my figure shelf. Next month the Earth 2 Hawkgirl comes out. I like her updated look, she might be the only other Earth 2 figure I plan to get in the near future.

"The theaters of the future will be bigger and more beautiful than ever before. They will employ expensive presentation formats that cannot be accessed or reproduced in the home (such as, ironically, film prints). And they will still enjoy exclusivity, as studios relearn the tremendous economic value of the staggered release of their products," Nolan continues. "The projects that most obviously lend themselves to such distinctions are spectacles. But if history is any guide, all genres, all budgets will follow."

Most of the above would necessitate a rise in ticket prices.

Theaters have to decide who they want to serve. A single person might be willing to pay $15 or $20 for a movie ticket. A family of 4 will not pay $20 each ($80) for the same film. A Couple may not be willing to drop $30 to $40 in one go either.

If theaters can get by on just customers that are single, higher prices might work for them. But if they want Couples and Families as customers, higher prices won't.

And relative to other available forms of entertainment, theaters are already too expensive for many families.

Specialization is for Insects

Modern working life steers hard toward specialization. With every expert in the world connected via the internet, why wouldn't you want to go to the most specialized expert for any given topic or task?

The larger the organization, the more sense it makes to specialize each individual within it.

Sometimes you can use technology to systematize or simplify a process to the point that the most general worker within the organization can perform a task. Even in that case you'll usually see the best people at the now generalized task assigned it over and over again-- specialization even in environments of extreme simplification and generalization. All things otherwise being similiar, nuance still comes into play.

Olympic sprinters are all fast, the measurable difference between 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place runners are trivial, in most cases. But in an event, like a race where the subtly of their capabilities is prized, small differences in skill matter.

In situations where small differences don't matter however, it makes no difference if the 1st, 2nd, or 3rd place runner is tasked.

The Knights of Sidonia

Last week I watched the "Netflix Original Anime" Knights of Sidonia. It's twelve 20ish minute episodes of Mecha anime. I'm not a big anime fan overall, but I did really like Robotech as a kid, and Knights of Sidonia is similar and cut from the same cloth as Macross in a lot of ways.

So if you have fond memories of Macross, and have a Netflix account, I'd recommend checking this series out.

(Oh and if you prefer your anime dubbed like I do, make sure you change the audio track to English in the Netflix's menu's little wordballoon icon.)

That unique strategy is a Microsoft thatís focused on mobile and cloud...

They have Ninety-something percent of the the Desktop OS market, but they want to be mobile and cloud? That's like Heinz deciding that ketchup is good and all but what they want to make is chocolate syrup.

Microsoft should be creating the best desktop OS possible. There is no uphill marketing battle on that at all. If Microsoft says they have a new version of their OS, everyone will give it a look/try, everyone. If Microsoft says they have a new phone OS or cloud service, not as many people will give them a look, because that is not how people see Microsoft.

Why doesn't my desktop PC/lapbook communicate seamlessly with my XBox One? Why aren't those two products a joy to use together? My Laptop and Xbox One, devices I already have, don't work that well together-- why would I add a Microsoft Phone to that mix, when so much work on the devices they make that I already like still needs to be done?

The Cloud services are great and all, but Google Services work on every platform. Why would I switch to Microsoft Cloud services which are haphazard in their coverage of multiple platforms? Microsoft has gotten better at putting Office/OneNote/Skype on multiple platforms, but to compete with Google's "free" services they've had to give all that software away for free to get market share. Google can do that, because Google is an advertising company, they don't intend to make money on their services directly, but Microsoft is not an advertising company, they are a software/services/hardware company (and honestly hardware is their least strongest suit even after years of the XBox/Keyboards/Mice and others).

Microsoft wants growth. They want more profits. Our system is set up to drive them that way. Microsoft's Ninety-Something percent market share in desktop OS should be a safe long term investment. But there is no market for a safe long term investment. Microsoft should hunker down and just be the Coca Cola of desktop OSes and solidify that market for the next 100 years, but instead they are chasing Mobile and Cloud services, the growth darlings of the moment. But I guess that's what the market demands.

He acknowledged, however, that people need "things to do" and "need to feel like you're needed," desires that are fulfilled through labor. One solution he offered: reduce the work week and perhaps split one full-time job into multiple part-time jobs.

"You just reduce work time," Page said. "Most people, if I ask them, 'Would you like an extra week of vacation?' They raise their hands, 100% of the people. 'Two weeks vacation, or a four-day work week?' Everyone will raise their hand. Most people like working, but they'd also like to have more time with their family or to pursue their own interests. So that would be one way to deal with the problem, is if you had a coordinated way to just reduce the workweek. And then, if you add slightly less employment, you can adjust and people will still have jobs."

Interesting, yet awkward at times conversation. Page has medical issues regarding speech, but even with that taken into account, his quote above had an interesting and kindof weird tone to it.

Suburban Explosions

They made huge fireworks legal in Michigan this year. The kind you normally see a city fireworks show, you can now buy and launch from your backyard and driveway. And boy did people in my neighboorhood launch mass quantities of massive fireworks.

For several hours, our otherwise quiet little suburban subdivision was a warzone of explosions.

I'm all for fireworks, but people really should have the good sense to go find a large empty field to launch them in. I saw several of these monsters explode at ground level in my neighbor's backyards, yet they kept on going.

Thankfully we've had a lot of rain recently and the whole city didn't burn down. I hope they change the laws for next year before an event like last night combines with the dry conditions of heatwave in some year to come.

The cat also wasn't a fan and hid under the couch and table a good portion of the night.

Flash and Constantine

I had the great fortune of having access to a Cosmic Treadmill this past week and I got to see the pilots for The Flash and Constantine.

I enjoyed both shows.

The Flash is very similar in feel to Arrow. If you like or hate that show, you'll probably feel the same about The Flash. The Flash is a lighter show with more superpowers though, sortof the good parts of Smallville combined with Arrow if that helps. Easter eggs and call backs and foreshadowing for Comic fans abound. I think it will easily grab the same fanbase as Arrow and do well for CW.

Constantine is a little more of a gamble. Constantine had a stronger pilot. Whereas, Flash's pilot although good felt a little rushed at times, almost like they wanted to get a whole 1st season's worth of set-up done and out of the way so that they could get straight to a "second season" hitting-their-stride-vibe, Constantine takes a more traditional easing you into it approach with a point of view character that get's thrown into an established world and has to feel her way around to understand the rules.

Yeah, I said "her" above. Constantine is not the point of view character for his own show. Constantine is really more the Han Solo character, he gets the world, has been operating in it for a good long while. Liv Aberdeen is the audience's Luke Skywalker-like POV character, strange powers and thrown into a world she didn't really know existed. I like this approach.

Whereas The Flash has the traditional lead hero + scooby gang cast construction. Constantine looks like it will have a more the on the road mission to mission motif.

Audiences who have watched Arrow, will instantly get how The Flash show works. Constantine will probably appeal more to people who like the CW Supernatural show's format. How Supernatural's format plays on a larger Network like NBC, we'll have to wait and see I suppose.

Comic fans though should enjoy adding both shows to their weekly viewing schedules, and be prepared to have very active DVRs next fall.

New Chromebook

This past week I picked up a Chromebook. I got a really good deal on an Acer 11.6" Chromebook (2GB 16GB). So far I've really been enjoying it.

It's not a device that should be your main computer unless your needs are crazy minimal but if you want to run the Chrome Browser on the go with a keyboard, these are delightful devices.

Besides a Chrome browser that is pretty much an identical to the one you'd use on windows, so far I've also been pleased that it:

Connects to HDMI and can use your TV as a second monitor or as a primary monitor mirror. the Chromebook makes an excellent media box, and can play MP4 files from USB stick directly to the TV full screen with ease

Has excellent battery life. I've easily gotten the advertised 8+ hours of battery life so far.

Has a fair number of apps in the Chrome App Store to handle most basic computing tasks (CBZ reader, Torrents, Sketchbook app and decesent photoediting.)

Multiple and Guest log-ins. If you have a Google Account, you're already readay to log in to it. If you are a chrome browser user, all your bookmarks, settings and apps follow over instantly too. And if you look up something on the Chromebook, it's easy to open Chrome on your Android phone and continue with the same page as well.

Again, it's not a replacement for a full computer. It's not Windows compatible, but as a streamlined secondary computer, it's quite nice. (And I do enjoy the direct access to the file system over the hoops you generally need to jump thru to access the file system on Android or iOS)

Oh, and as you can see above, it came in a box, that's our cat's favorite feature so far.

No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didnít eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counterexamples. None. Itís not if, itís when.

Sat, 25 May 2013 07:57:39 -0700
I?m not a fan of the new Flickr redesign. It?s not even that I don?t like the visual look of it.My primary beef is: without warning they completely changed the service for paying customers. I?ve payed for a Pro account for years under the assumption that paying for a service would provide a little more reliability. Flickr has shown that not to be the case, so I?m planning to use it far less frequently and probably far differently than the personal photo site of record I have been using it as. (I?m also not pleased with their likely upcoming attention/advertising model)

I was able to put all my photos into one Set and download the full size images using a free service called flickandshare.com, so I have everything safely out of the service now. Likely I will eventually set up my own simple photo gallery (and give these photos a new home) on my website at chris-karath.com. Hosting your own services and codes seem to be the most reliable method for content that you want around for years to come.

Photos that are here now, will probably continue to be here, Yahoo willing, into the future.

Since Flickr has shown itself to be of unpredictable stability, and it appears to be transforming into more a social network than a photo service, I?ll probably plan on treating it as such. If you subscribe to my account for the action figures, I?ll probably from time to time still post a picture or two of those here with links back to my own site where I?ll likely start posting more photos.

If you follow for my personal photos, following me on Twitter or my personal blog atchris-karath.com will probably be your best bet. --- Best wishes, Chris.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
I've never actually taken the full tour of the Museum. It was free today, so we went through it. It's nicely done for it's sort of thing.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:02 -0700
Those light poles to the shore should be dry land

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:01 -0700
Stairways to nowhere. Grand Rapids.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:49:00 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:59 -0700

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 13:48:58 -0700
Grand Rapids Art Museum. This display is by a new guy who just joined our team at work.

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 06:49:01 -0700

Sat, 30 Mar 2013 12:17:53 -0700
Both these guys have contributed a lot to comics. I'm not implying anything with the choice of pose. I figure in classic comic parlance though, these two comic heroes would be obligated to fight before teaming up to defeat some great evil.

Recent Blog Comments

Thread: p1825 Post by Jolloway2013-02-23 12:23:49 Hi Cris and other people who view this sight,
I just started a blog site jolloway.co.uk and I wonderd if anyone can give me any tips on blogging. I am curently using a site called word press to host me blog. I start around about a month ago and I\'m really struggling with it and if you do reply I\'m only 11 and found this sight by a photo in google Images.
-Josh
P.S. I love the background XP

Thread: p1706 Post by Chris2012-10-27 13:29:47 Fortunately, I resisted the DC/Master Bundles as they were pretty much only bundled with basic figures I already had. Had they been bundled with more unique DC figures, I might have alot more Masters figures at this point ;)

Thread: p1706 Post by De2012-10-27 13:06:27 I almost bit on Masters of the Universe when they were being bundled with DC Universe figures in the two-packs. I\'ve also liked the blending of sci-fi and fantasy but a lad only has so much room :-)

Thread: p1674 Post by T. Bass2012-10-24 20:55:50 Hi Chris:
Like you, I bought and just received an ONDA V701. Mine took 32 days (!) to arrive from China (bought from gadgetdealer.com... avoid like plague), and the box was beat to hell, but it seems to work fine ....with one exception.
That said, I like the tablet thus far, but a couple of things aren\'t flying right. One, it was advertised as having Adobe Flash ver. 11.1, but instead, mine came with 10.2. Yours? Not sure this matters, as Flash is going the way of the dodo-bird as far as Android goes.
My only real complaint thus far, and that despite trying everything I could find online, I cannot get NetFlix to work. This was/is one of the main reasons I bought it, as they advertised that it \"works with NetFlix\". I don\'t know whether it\'s the tablet, or the app that is the problem, but nonetheless, no love from NetFlix at this point.
I don\'t know if you are subscribed to Netflix, but if you are, I sure would like to know if it works for you on your V701, and if so, how did you get it going, and what settings are you\'re using to make it work? Appreciate hearing from you.
Best,
T. Bass
Applegate, Oregon

Thread: p1557 Post by davy2012-08-24 17:58:58 i kind of agree with you, and i\'m sure bale had the best intentions but the whole media circus at times is disturbing.
but if to had to pick on whether bale should have visited or not i\'d rather he visit for the sole reason that if he made any of the survivors feel good,even if it was only for the briefest moments, then it was worth it.
the victims medical and emotonals needs should be put first and if bale\'s visit helped any of them emotionally then i\'m glad